Australia v South Africa

At Sydney, January 10, 11, 13, 14, 15. Drawn. A game of many highlights began with bowlers encouraged by a pitch generous in grass, but ended with batsmen once more entrenched on a friendly strip.

Peter Pollock, the South African fast bowler of considerable power, made the most of the lively conditions early on and, with five wickets for 83, he helped dismiss a strong Australian batting side for 260.

The elegant Booth showed his class in a fine innings. Then Graeme Pollock, who hit 120 earlier against New South Wales on the same ground, played his maiden Test century, an innings of fierce strokeplay which brought one 6 and nineteen 4's. His 122 came out of 186 in three hours, forty-one minutes, the second fifty of his century coming in 17 scoring strokes.

With McKenzie yorking Waite and Van der Merwe in one over, the middle of the order disintegrated, so that South Africa's lead was limited to 42.

This the Australians quickly erased and with Simpson, Lawry and O'Neill in fine fettle, the initiative changed hands. Benaud and McKenzie completed the recovery with an attractive partnership of 160, which fell only five short of the Australian seventh-wicket record set up by Hill and Trumble 66 years earlier.

So South Africa went in a second time needing 409 in seven and a quarter hours and the fact that they got to within 83 of that figure with five wickets left showed how the nature of the pitch changed.

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